Interpol has issued an arrest notice for Samantha Lewthwaite, the fugitive British national who has been dubbed the “white widow.” The international police agency says the notice was issued at the request of Kenya, where she is wanted on charges of possessing explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony in December 2011. There has also been speculation about her possible involvement in the Sept. 21 terror attack at Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall — although there has been no evidence linking her to the attack so far.

Lewthwaite, 29, was labeled the “white widow” because of her marriage to the suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay who blew up a train on the London Underground at King’s Cross in 2005, killing 26 people. The accusations she faces in Kenya include plotting to attack hotels and restaurants. Together with her British accomplice Jermaine Grant, she was arrested in Kenya in December 2011 days before carrying out the attack. While Grant remains in custody, Lewthwaite escaped and has been on the run in East Africa with her children ever since.

In many respects, Lewthwaite is an unlikely terrorist suspect. Born in 1983 to British soldier Andy Lewthwaite – who met and married Christine Allen in the 1970s – she spent her childhood years in Northern Ireland and her teens in the quintessentially English town of Aylesbury in southeast England. Described by a family friend as an average girl who was “empty in confidence,” Lewthwaite is also the mother of three children who are all under the age of 10. While Lindsay is the father of the two older children, the father of the youngest child is unknown.

The youngest in a family of three children, Lewthwaite converted to Islam when she was 15 after becoming friendly with a local Muslim family. Within a couple of years, she was wearing a galabiya (the full-length gown that covers everything but the hands and face). Her interest in religion developed and she enrolled at the London-based School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 2002, although the BBC reports she dropped out after two months. She met her former husband — the Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay who was also a convert to Islam — on the Internet during the same year and the pair were married after a few months.

Immediately after the explosions that killed 52 people on the London transport system, Lewthwaite distanced herself from the actions of her suicide-bomber husband. She claimed she knew nothing of the terror plot and condemned his actions as “abhorrent,” saying that trips to radical mosques had “poisoned his mind.”

But she disappeared shortly after the attack. She was known to be in Kenya and, last year, officials said she had fled to Somalia and police were hunting a woman who used several identities, including hers, reported the BBC. BBC journalist Peter Taylor, who has just returned from Somalia where he was making a documentary program about al-Shabab, the terror group connected to the Westgate attack, said that Lewthwaite had become an almost “mythological” figure. “She disappeared off the radar and turns up again in Kenya,” said Taylor, speaking to the BBC Today program on Tuesday. “It would appear she became involved with al-Shabab to fight jihad as her husband believed he was doing when he bombed the Tube.” It is also thought that she remarried while she was in East Africa.

Local councilor Raj Khan, who knew Lewthwaite’s family socially in Aylesbury, has spoken about his amazement at Lewthwaite’s involvement in terrorism. “She was an average British, young, ordinary girl,” Khan recounted according to the Irish Independent. “She had a very great personality. She didn’t have very good confidence. She was not strong-headed and that’s why I find it absolutely amazing that she is supposed to be the head of an international criminal terrorist organization.”

Khan added that he prays she was not involved in terrorism, adding that her family would be “very upset” if reports about her involvement in the Nairobi attack turn out to be true. “Of course like anyone else, they will be hurt, very upset, very, very upset, but I think they will be waiting for proof, not speculation,” he said according to the Irish Independent.

The BBC reports that it is understood Lewthwaite has had little contact with her relatives in Northern Ireland since her conversion to Islam. Newspapers reported that her 85-year-old grandmother, Elizabeth Allen, was admitted to hospital after suffering stress over Lewthwaite’s notoriety although she has since been discharged. And the Mirroradds that Lewthwaite’s entire family have struggled to come to terms with the young woman’s disappearance shortly after the London suicide bombing attacks.

Nairobi Shopping Mall Shootout Leaves At Least 68 Dead

Noor Khamis / Reuters

Kenya Defence Forces soldiers take their position at the Westgate shopping centre, on the fourth day since militants stormed into the mall, in Nairobi, Sept. 24, 2013.

If the White Widow was able to accomplish this unspeakable terror & atrocities with a fake passport, just imagine the type of damage, brutality and mayhem the White Widow & her band of terrorist could have done in the U.S. or anywhere else around the world for that matter, with real, valid passports found at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC. Lost passports that are callously & illegally tossed in the garbage at the PABT at the direction of Port Authority Supervisors.

In this age of global terrorism and rampant identity theft, the Port Authority is a reckless shameful embarrassment of bi-state transportation agency where it comes to safety & security in this area. To ignore this gaffe would be a crime on all levels of local, state & federal government and all persons in a position of responsibility. Action must be taken against these insane incompetent criminals in the Port Authority before more innocent lives are lost. The Port Authority of NY & NJ has become a threat to National Security with it’s illegal passport policy.

Kenyan government knows that she was involved in the attack but since investment comes from one of these countries, british counterpart forcing them and media to publish wrong story (just like moon landing) to save country's image. From inside circle of all reporters and even witnesses of mall siege know Lewthwaite was one of the terrorists involved in mall attack.

Again terrorists don't have any religion, race or country of origin (they have only one identity: "extremists, radicalised and brainwashed by evil thoughts") then why to protect her where the truth is already on everyone's face. @whanethewhip

Obama is THE MAN !!! Obama have a priccck, d**** , and on top of that tiitttt !! OBEY REPENT(kiss the boots) OBEY REPENT(pray for Obama) OBEY !!! OR YOU WILL PAY(you will pay anyway, but you not supposed to know that) !!!

Obama sees your every step(just look through your window - behind the tree), he hears everything you say(knows every letter/stroke you type online - obviously - just look at his big ears if you don't believe me), and can read your mind(everything - even when you have to go on the toilet). Now you know... don't eat or drink, don't shhhittt, and don't even think about think;)))) you are all set now America(what America !!! The whole world and not only America !!).

This is what muslims do they brainwash low self esteem morons like this women and turn them into the religious fanatics that they are and of course use the dummys for sex and breeding more violent Muslims . Never ending cycle of muslim killers, but you f-ing liberal ass wipes think they are so peaceful. What dummys.

@ansh.joshi.aj@whanethewhip try muslim, that is what they are, you put what ever bs spin on you want they are still muslim and they are extremists and radical brainwashed evil killers wwho commit terror any way they can. they are scum of the earth.

You are the dummy who is responsible for the continuation of the terror. Only a small segment of Muslims are responsible for the terror you so fear, and you will not name them. They are Wahhabi, and their home is Saudi Arabia.

@Openminded1Iran has not been associated with one single act of terror in any
report of the National Counter Terror Center since it was started. Maybe
that's why they stopped publishing their annual reports, no excuse to
hate Iran. Not one report of terrorism against America or
Americans since the National Counter Terror Center started publishing
their annual reports. So why is there so much fear of Iran instead of
the real source of anti-American terror, Saudi Arabia?

Actually I agree . I hit unlike by mistake. It is like ethnocentrism. Mine is right and everybody else is wrong. All religions. The christians have the same violent history as the muslims so I have to think that God does not approve of any.

@whanethewhip No. This actually suggests how the particular strain of
radical islam to which this particular person was exposed poisoned her mind.
Not sure if this says anything about Christianity, moderate Islam, Judaism,
Hinduisim, Bahai, shamanism, etc. etc. etc.

@Openminded1@ansh.joshi.aj@whanethewhip Iran has not been associated with one single act of terror in any report of the National Counter Terror Center since it was started. Maybe that's why they stopped publishing their annual reports, no excuse to hate Iran.

Not one report of terrorism against America or Americans since the National Counter Terror Center started publishing their annual reports. So why is there so much fear of Iran instead of the real source of anti-American terror, Saudi Arabia?

@BobFromDistrict9 Hey Bobby how are things on the west side of Chicago with that huge Muslim population? I heard from an FBI source they keep a close eye on Chicago area muslims it is now the 3rd largest Muslim population in the U.S.. They have files on over 30,000 muslims alone just in Chicago. To bad I love Chicago the best big city in the USA. But I eat and enjoy little Italy and the north shore, Lincoln Park , and the north suburbs. so I do not run into to many openly obvious Muslims.

@BobFromDistrict9 You are a dummy, this girl was born a Brit, and smiling muslim neighbor's brainwashed her against her own family and country to be recruited in to the radical muslim world. that is what and how the operate. That small segment does not wear name tags dummy that is why you can not trust any muslim and be a naive fool like you.

@BobFromDistrict9 Oh yes it is me and post that are responsible for terror by these fanatical muslims. Get real ass wipe. The girl in question was born a Brit not a muslim wannabe, she was influenced by neighboors that were muslim, that is what muslims do moron that is one of there Mo's to recruit dumb naive people. That is why I have always said do not trust a muslim just because they live next door to you and smile. You are a dummy bleeding heart liberal fool.

@BobFromDistrict9@Openminded1@ansh.joshi.aj@whanethewhip first off moron I made no statement about Iran, I am talking about Muslims but since you mention them I will say they can not and should not be trusted there is to much bad blood between them and the U.S. to just roll over to this new President's charm. By the way he is not the real power of Iran and you know that, he is not bottom line so what he says is to be taken with a openmind but not to seriously .